Reviving Crusade's mission (Black voters in Virginia)

[salin]

Reviving Crusade's mission

MICHAEL PAUL WILLIAMS
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST

The Richmond Crusade for Voters' skill at mobilizing black voters earned it recognition as a national model during the 1960s.

The organization thrived, according to political scientist Robert Holsworth, despite poll taxes and other voter impediments.

The Crusade's clout continued through the'70s and'80s, which saw the election of Richmond's first black City Council majority, its first black mayor and the nation's first elected black governor, Virginia's L. Douglas Wilder.

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The legal barriers that led to the establishment of the Crusade have been removed. But black voter participation is at levels lower than what would have been considered evidence of racial discrimination under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Holsworth said.

On a blustery Saturday, the Crusade engaged in a strategic retreat so that it might move forward. Several dozen members met at Virginia Union University to figure out how to recapture the magic.

more: http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031772500456&path=%21news&s=1045855934842

[Voltaire99]

1. Prediction

I predict that the urban base of the Democratic Party deserts it en masse in 2004, finally sick and tired of getting nothing for their vote.

Could be wrong, but disaffection is deep and, thanks to the systematic disenfranchisement wrought by the (bipartisan) drug war. deepening.

Then again, Sharpton is poised to deliver black votes -- if the Dems have something to offer him in return.

[schultzee]

2. Sharpton is fantastic. The Dems should make him an administration official

if they take the white house in 2994.